Welcome to Pathfinders!

Class teachers:  Mrs Rebecca Elliott and Mrs Emma Pryer

Spring Term 2 News-

This half term we have been really busy in Pathfinder’s. We have been learning all about money and the children have made expert shop keepers and customers. We used our problem solving skills to work out how to make the same amounts in different ways. The children loved working together and using the real coins to help them. They made great progress and even began working on giving change to a customer.

In our Dimensions and Computing learning the children have been working on coding and using algorithms. The children used the Bee-bots and directed them around the map. The children then transferred these skills to online Bee-Bots where the practiced using their mouse and keyboard skills as well as utilizing their coding skills too. The children had lots of fun exploring their coding skills. In our Dimension’s ‘Land Ahoy!’ learning we have also been learning about ‘floating and sinking’. We used our science predicting skills to predict whether objects around our class would. Finally, in our Dimension’s Art learning, we have been looking at the use of colour. We have explored the colour wheel and have experimented with how to mix colours to create new colours. The children learnt the 3 primary colours and how to mix these into secondary colours. The children then looked and Kandinsky’s art work. We had some brilliant conversations about what is was that we liked and what we would like to magpie for our own art work. We focused on ‘Concentric circles’ and the children re-created their own versions of ‘Concentric Circles’. float or sink. We then conducted an experiment altogether. Lots of our predictions were right but we were amazed that rubber bands sunk – the children all predicted that the rubber band would float. 

Spring Term 1 News-

This half term in Pathfinders we have been working hard on our Math’s learning. We have been practicing lots of skills from our past learning such as ‘time’, ‘days of the week’ and ‘place value’ in our afternoon Math’s Meetings. I have been really impressed by the children’s memory and the skills they are applying in these sessions! We have been looking at multiplication in their Math’s learning and have worked really hard to understand arrays. We used the counters to create different arrays and write the two multiplication number sentences which it shows. We have also introduced a ‘Big Math’s’ session every week where the children are concentrating on building up their problem solving and reasoning skills. I was blown away by the children’s ability to think outside the box and apply all that they know about number to solve a problem. Our first Big Math’s problem was called Triangle Totals- we used the numicon to help us make each side of the triangle add up to the same number. The children worked hard in their teams to move their numicon to show their answers. I was so impressed with the mathematical language the children used to discuss this problem and was so proud of Ivy when she spotted our final mistake to make our triangle correct! Great mathematical learning this week Pathfinder’s!

Our children have been looking at different languages as well lately including French (from our Dancing Spy unit) and Chinese as it has been Chinese New Year, so why not ask your children to say hello in one of these languages. We have also learned lots about Chinese New Year this week – we have made Chinese lanterns and weaved special patterns on them. To finish off our Chinese New Year Week, the children also created their own Chinese Dragons using our Computing skills. This was a great opportunity for the children to practice their computing skills which they developed last term. There were some amazing and very colourful Chinese Dragons and the children worked hard to remember which tool creates certain effects. Great learning this week. We are ready to set sail on our next Dimensions unit Land Ahoy! And we can’t wait to see what adventures lay ahead. AHAAA me Hearty’s let’s learn

Autumn 2 News

This half term, Pathfinder’s had the opportunity to participate in a drama workshop about the many different continents around the world. We found out about the 7 continents and visited some of them with the help of our trusty Pirate Katie. We enjoyed playing lots of different characters, working together to build landmarks from around the world such as The Eiffel Tower, and The Great Wall of China. We pretended to fly an aeroplane, row a boat and walk through the jungle. We learnt lots about the seven continents and the 5 oceans and it was a great way to launch our Dimensions Unit Paddington’s Passport.

This half term has been very busy in Pathfinder’s class; our Dimensions topic ‘Inter-Nation Media Station’ has allowed the children to explore the history of radio and TV. We have spent lots of time talking about our favorite TV shows and sharing why we like them. We have role played ‘news round ups’ and interviews and have practiced how to ask questions. This linked in brilliant with our English story ‘Look Up!’ where we practiced these skills acting as the ‘press’ interviewing our main character ‘Rocket’. We loved using the microphone and having our special ‘PRESS’ badges for this job. We wondered what kinds of questions the press would ask Rocket. We thoughts of some great questions and practiced asking them. We used our press badges and our microphone to perform our conference.

In our Maths learning, we have been working on the place value of numbers. Year 1 have been concentrating on numbers up to 10 and understanding what 1 more and 1 less means. We have used our counters, tens frames and dice to help us use these skills practically. In Year 2, we have been concentrating on larger two digit numbers. We made the number using the base 10 and then practiced partitioning it using our part whole models.  We explored the different ways we could partition the same number. We are looking forward to lots more learning next half term.